Save Article

Klout Revamps, Delivers Reality Check

By

Jessica E. Vascellaro

Aug 14, 2012 1:02 pm ET

Klout, a startup that assigns people a score based on their online influence, is adjusting its pecking order to better account for the real world.

On Tuesday, the San Francisco-based startup is updating its algorithm to account for 300 new inputs, including some designed to recognize a person’s offline importance. Those include the ratio of inbound to outbound links on a person’s Wikipedia page and the title they list for themselves on LinkedIn. Most other variables remain online-focused, like how often a person’s tweets are replied to or how many times his or her content is “Liked” on Facebook.

The changes curb some of the grade inflation that buzzy celebrities with large social media followings have long enjoyed on the service and others like it. Pop star Justin Bieber drops to a 92 from a perfect 100. New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, on the other hand, jumps 10 points to 82.